OFF-TOPIC: The hard drive guy [was Re: Backup]

[yesss@xxxxxxxx]

		the Dave Erickson of Syquest
		founded Castlewood 	--me

	I think you give the SyQuest
	guy too much credit. 		--Bill Troop

The Syquest guy would be Seagate co-founder (he
designed the first 5.25" hdd, 1982)/Syquest founder
(the Sy in Syquest) Syed Iftikar. After Iomega's Zip
drive ate Syquest's lunch and Syq dumped him as CEO
in '96, Iftikar founded Castlewood.

	His entire business model is based on the principle
	that HD manufacturers have previous generation platters
	they have to get rid of cheap. He buys them up and
	turns them into SyQuests, Jaz's, Orbs, whatever.

Who'd've thunk that the demands of a transpac startup
and keeping his company afloat would leave Iftikar
enough time to scurry about scavenging old platters
and turning them into cartridges for his own drives
and for whatever competitors and defunct companies?

Time was, news group participants who wished
to bash Syquest (nyah, nyah, my-drive's-better-
than-yours kind of thing, news groups overall
being adolescent nerd venues) inevitably would
trot out, in one form or another, a claim that
Syquest had to use platters that were defective
on one side, etc etc.

That variant made sense in context since it
smeared only Syquest carts. To condemn any
cartridge drive, I guess your variant--that
Iftikar assembles defective cartridges for
all drives--is a useful expansion.

I've never seen such practices even hinted
at under the logo of a responsible publisher--
none in the several investment-oriented stories
Forbes, FEER, etc. published after Iftikar
announced Castlewood and when he was setting
up its manufacturing and marketing alliances, no
allusions to anything like that in Orb reviews.

That convinces me that either the tales are yet
another Internet-born and -borne urban myth or they
contain a germ of truth and, whatever that truth
may be, the practice is benign but can be reduced
to a ritual factoid or variant to obfuscate
exchanges about Iftikar's products, or about
all cartridge drives if need be.

The notion that Iftikar runs around collecting
reject platters to turn into cartridges not only
for his own drives but for the competition, plus
for drives that have been out of production for
years, is too preposterous to consider.

But strictly for the purposes of this discussion,
let's speculate that Iftikar did and does, at
Syquest and at Castlewood, recycle new materials
that otherwise would be waste in products that are
not harmed by their inclusion, indeed that benefit
from being made affordable thereby: Aside from slashdot
poseurs and high selected federal officials and their
$upporter$, who would sneer at such conservation
efforts? To many of the rest of us, green looks good.

Castlewood's business model in fact is based on
the principle that owning manufacturing facilities
invites a fate like Syquest's. Standing the usual
process on its head, instead of building Malaysian
plants and installing staff, Castlewood contracts
to a manufacturer managed by local hard-drive industry
vets (Connor, etc.), a Malaysian manufacturer that--
get this--*has invested in California-based Castlewood*.

Looks to me like the dude, besides being an industry
pioneer, must be a real smooth talker. He also turns
scavenged platters "into SyQuests, Jaz's, Orbs,
whatever"? I don't think so. ... Ciao. 				--a

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